Donna Tartt

Some of the biggest names in American literature have been silent for quite some time now. Amy Tan? Hasn’t published a novel in eight years. Donna Tartt? Absent for 10. And the last time we heard from Allan Gurganus was in 1997. The drought ends this fall with a splash, as those three authors, among many others, bring out hotly anticipated new novels: Tan’s The Valley of Amazement (left) follows a virgin courtesan from turn-of the-century Shanghai to San Francisco; …